(Yicai) Nov. 20 -- As a future-oriented industry, synthetic biology needs inputs and support from government agencies and all other parts of society, according to an expert.

It is also necessary to introduce a systematic and scientific industrial supervision system for the synthetic biology industry, Zhao Guoping, a researcher at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences under the China Academy of Science, said at a synthetic biology and green biological manufacturing forum on Nov. 17.

Synthetic biology is a multidisciplinary subject that involves redesigning living systems and organisms for useful purposes by applying engineering principles to modify their genetic materials and give them new abilities. It has broad prospects for applications in medicine, energy, material, chemistry, and agriculture, such as mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, revolutionary chimeric antigen receptors T-cell tumor therapies, and cultivated meat.

China has entered the fast track of synthetic biology's basic research and industrial development and formed local industrial clusters in Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Shanghai, Zhao noted.

A number of Chinese local governments, including that of Shanghai, have already issued policies to encourage and promote the development of the synthetic biology industry.

Shanghai raised its goals for the general development and technological research achievements of the local synthetic industry over the next five years, according to a document the eastern Chinese city released last month.

Changzhou, in China's eastern Jiangsu province, issued a document earlier this year with plans to set up an over CNY2 billion (USD278 million) synthetic biology industry investment fund to guide financial institutions to enhance credit support to firms in the synthetic biology field.

Hangzhou, the capital city of China's eastern Zhejiang province, proposed in a policy document released in September to allocate allowances of up to CNY5 million (USD694,935) to key local scientific research projects in synthetic biology.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione